Monday, November 25, 2013

"About Time," A Movie Of Second Chances

"About Time," the conversation

This past weekend we decided to see a movie. We had seen the trailers for "About Time" and since it had the director and some of the stars of my favorite film, "Love Actually" I was ready to give it a go even if the plot seemed, well, silly. Traveling back in time? Really?

It appeared the men in our hero's family had the ability to go back in time for do overs. It led to some funny situations as well as a few sobering ones. I left the film feeling uplifted but I just wasn't sure why. Near the end when he visits his father for the last time the father tells several more secrets one being he should relive each day over again. Why? On the second time around you can adjust for the mistakes you made on the first pass. Our hero Tim learned a lot faster than Bill Murray did in "Groundhog Day." In fact so much he gave up reliving each day.

What was the father's advice? The importance of living each day as if it were your last. While he could go back in time, he couldn't defeat death.

The other thing I realized is that creative people are also given second chances, only I don't think many of us ever see it that way. Every author can rewrite a terrible passage or chapter or even a book. The first draft might be dreadful but in its rewrite you have the opportunity to get it right. I remembered my ill fated persimmon painting. The first version got steadily worse until I gave up, threw it away and started over. While I expanded many hours on the first version the second one, started from scratch, took barely two hours to finish. It was literally as if the first experience taught me everything I needed to know about that subject and when doing it again all the mistakes were overcome. If you are an artist of any sort (and yes, many say that just the fact of living is an art), you know exactly what I mean.

Life is a balancing art. People need to understand that everything they do in one way or another has a ripple effect similar to casting a stone in a still pond. As the ripple expands more and more of the pond, of our lives, are touched by the ripple. While we can redo our craft we don't have the luxury of redoing our lives.

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